Tag: Greta Thunberg

Here in the mid-March energies, few are not feeling the effects of the changes happening across our planet. In a profound sense, humanity is experiencing a tsunami of change. Yet, as humans being, well, human, we tend to dismiss, deny, disregard or discount what is actually happening here on Earth. The good news is, more and more are waking up and discovering that the Earth changes are real, not imagined. They are recognizing the need for massive changes to how we treat our world, each other, and ourselves. And while it’s hopeful to know all of this, knowledge alone doesn’t help with the intense emotions that accompany all this change.

Right now I am in a cycle of viscerally experiencing the tensions running extraordinarily high all around me. We all experience it in our own way, and for me it manifests as grief. There’s a lot to grieve in our present state—go to any reputable online news site and there is no lack of sad stories across the world. On Monday, for example, an airliner carrying 157 people from Ethiopia to Nairobi crashed, killing everyone on board. The daily news tells similar stories of unexpected death, destruction, injustice, corruption, abuse, inhumanity, and damage to Gaia in a nonstop stream. Even if a person has no interest in reading these reports, it’s basically impossible to avoid the knowledge of these chaotic times. It’s literally in the air we all share, the water we all use, and the common ground beneath our feet.

It can be difficult to know what to do with all the heavy energies around us. I read many blogs and watch select YouTube channels for encouragement and inspiration. Some days this helps, but other days nothing I read or listen to seems to touch the level of sorrow I feel regarding our world. Many times I read advice to the effect of, “Be joyful! The changes happening on Earth are necessary for the purging and cleansing of long-held negative and toxic energies that humans have held onto for eons of time. You cannot take the old energies with you into the new Earth, so it’s imperative to forgive others, forgive yourself, and release them.” I understand this logic with my mind, but right now I cannot feel joyful as I look at all the difficult life experiences we are enduring. There are times to grieve for what is being lost, and that’s how I’m personally experiencing what’s happening right now.

On this blog, I’ve posted recently about Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist who has made headlines around the world for her courageous school strikes in protest of the lack of action by world leaders. At the end of this week, on March 15th, many thousands of school-aged children and youth are planning to strike for climate action all across the globe. Greta, in an interview with The Guardian this week, said she was excited about the strike, and that it will be fun. But she made no hopeful speech about the future of Earth for her generation. She clearly recognizes that by the time she reaches mid-life, the world is likely to be a very difficult place to live upon for nearly everyone. For those of us who also see that future as very likely, it’s a heartbreaking acknowledgment of how we’ve mistreated our home, and through our complacency and lack of care, have allowed the climate crisis to continue.

I am by nature an optimist and want, more than anything, to believe that solutions will come in time for the next generations of humanity to have a chance at a healthy world to live in and raise their children and grandchildren. But to be completely honest, it is becoming harder and harder to believe in a healthy future world in thirty, fifty, or a hundred years, without some seriously major changes on a global scale happening NOW. That is Greta’s message, and she speaks for many millions of people. As long as the majority of people in power do little to change policies, laws and regulations regarding fossil fuel use, the future scenarios we’ve all heard and seen of a dystopian world are likely to become reality.

When I look around at our planet, say on the internet, and see places that still hold such absolute beauty and majesty, are still relatively unspoiled by humanity’s activity and where wilderness is still alive, it makes me wonder how much longer will these places survive intact? Increasingly there is a split between the human-made world and the world of nature, to the point where now there are many humans who never experience wild places, or even touch the bare earth with their bodies. Through technology, people feel that they no longer need direct, sensory experience of nature because they can play virtual reality games which simulate those type of experiences. A whole generation of humans are now being raised in a virtual reality environment without direct knowledge of how it feels to simply be outside in a wild place, with all the sensory stimulus it provides. It’s the equivalent of eating fast food your whole life, never realizing that there is food available that’s natural, unadulterated, and nutritious. Having never experienced it, they don’t even know it exists or what they’ve missed out on all those years.

The premise of this blog is that all life on Earth is connected, that we are all joined in the great web of everything-that-is. When one is hurt, all feel it on some level, no matter to what degree. The thought of a future earth that is uninhabitable because it has become so damaged by thoughtless, careless human beings full of hubris who only focused on extracting the planet’s treasures without giving life back, is utterly unbearable. No one wants to live in such a world, so why are we living in such a way?

“We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change. Because if we fail to do so, then all of our achievements and progress have been for nothing.” Greta Thunberg, speech to the EU leaders, February 2019

If you haven’t yet heard Greta Thunberg speak, now would be a good time to do it. She has suddenly gained the world’s attention as a mighty and fearless warrior for our planet Earth. And she is just getting started.

Greta is sixteen and tiny, with long mahogany braids, clear blue eyes, and a determined set to her jaw. She is Swedish, and for the past school year she’s been striking in front of the Swedish parliament house every Friday. Her demands are so very simple, and extremely clear: that the adults who run her country actually DO EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO REVERSE CLIMATE CHANGE AND HOLD TO THE PARIS AGREEMENT. Now she’s on tour, if you will, and has appeared at COP 24, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and most recently spoke before members of the EU on Thursday, February 21st. Whether alone or with schoolmates, Greta takes command of the room. Her message is utterly on point and without any sort of artifice. Her words cut through all the static and egoism present, and like an extraordinarily sharp blade, cut to the heart of our human-created, global situation. She is asking for the people who have the power to take responsibility for their decisions and to begin making better choices, now.

In her speech before a crowd at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Greta stated,

We know that most politicians don’t want to talk to us. Good, we don’t want to talk to them either. We want them to talk to the scientists instead. Listen to them because we are just repeating what they are saying and have been saying for decades– just unite behind the science–that is our demand.

I’m sorry but saying everything will be alright while continue doing nothing at all it’s just not hopeful to us. In fact, it’s the opposite of hope and yet this is exactly what you keep doing. You can’t just sit around waiting for hope to come, then you’re acting like spoiled, irresponsible children. You don’t seem to understand that hope is something you have to earn and if you still say that we are wasting valuable lesson time then let me remind you that our political leaders have wasted decades through denial and inaction, and since our time is running out we have decided to take action. We have started to clean up your mess and we will not stop until we are done. Watch her speech via The Guardianhere

This young, fearless teenager has become, whether she intended to or not, the poster child for the climate crisis that is now in full swing on our home world. Most people will either continue to deny or else to cringe at these words, yet Greta, with her clear blue eyes and calm, measured demeanor, is calling it out for the rest of us. And she is absolutely right—the world’s leaders and CEOs ARE acting like spoiled, irresponsible children, as they continue to unabashedly allow the destruction of Earth in the name of profits. This is, as Greta pointedly states, destroying her generation’s chances at any kind of a healthy future life for all those being born and all those yet to come. She’s right again by stating that the Power Elite have known for decades that their decisions and actions (and inactions) would create the situation we are in now. And yet, they only cared about their bottom line, which grew increasingly engorged from oil profits as time passed.

Greta Thunberg is absolutely correct in her summation and demands of the adults in the world’s highest level meetings: Listen to the climate scientists. Stop pretending.
And above all, TAKE URGENT ACTION, NOW.

What she knows, and the scientists know, and what anyone who is not living in denial surely knows by now, is that human beings have already done irretrievable damage to Earth. We have instigated the Sixth Mass Extinction; our fossil fuel appetite has started the cycle of global warming that cannot be undone. The UN’s IPCC report states that we have roughly a decade to urgently change the way we’re using energy, or…. Let’s just say the world will soon be uninhabitable for many. Greta urged the world’s leaders to see our situation for what it is: a crisis. She wants them to panic, to realize that humanity MUST CHANGE THE WAY WE ARE LIVING EVERY DAY, AND CHANGE RIGHT NOW. Not next year, or by 2030, or any of that nonsense. NOW. Right now.

What is, in my opinion, so remarkable about Greta Thunberg and her simple activism, is that she has completely empowered the youngest members of our societies to spring into action. Last week there were school children protesting all around the UK. There have been student protests in Germany, Switzerland, Australia and it is spreading. In March, organizers are planning a global school strike day for climate change. It’s no longer something that only some progressive adults are doing. Now that youth and children are getting involved and taking to the streets, the climate movement is gaining the kind of momentum that must lead to real change. Why? Because Greta is right: The world’s youth are inheriting the horrible mess that we adults have created over the past fifty years. They are the ones who must live in the future world. The Millennials and Generation Z (those born around the turn of the 21st century) comprise a large percentage of the world’s population. And more are coming every day. This is an unprecedented, world-wide crisis that has no national boundaries, nor specially preserved places that won’t be affected. Species are going extinct in all parts of the globe. The ice caps are melting on both poles. The coastlines will be inundated along all continents. Climate change is the great equalizer. It doesn’t care about race, gender or religion, material wealth or poverty, or any of the distinctions we humans are so fond of keeping in place.

The world’s children are waking up, standing up, and shouting. To ignore them any longer is not only foolish, but will soon be impossible. They will not be stopped. I, and many, many others like me, are standing behind them and cheering. The world’s leaders and their oil-soaked backers have done everything possible to ignore their citizens’ collective outcry. But they will not be allowed to ignore the children any longer.
Greta Thunberg and all those who will come after her will make sure of it.

To find out more about Greta Thunberg, read this article in Earth Island Journal here.